On October 1, the G7 representatives gathered at the Caserta Royal Palace to discuss education and resilience, with a particular focus on Africa. The AVSI Secretary General, Giampaolo Silvestri, was invited a few months ago by the Italian Development Cooperation Agency to participate in a session with Minister for the Family, Eugenia Roccella, Laura Frigenti, Director of the Global Partnership for Education, and Daniela Fatarella, Director of Save the Children Italy. The invitation, the result of AVSI's years of commitment in sub-Saharan African countries, gave us great joy, but no one expected what was to come.

About ten days before the event, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs asked us to invite the principal of an African elementary school. Silvestri immediately thought of inviting Priscilla Achan, from Luigi Giussani Primary School in Kampala. Priscilla is a dear friend of mine, and I have known her for many years now. Her mother was one of the women of Meeting Point International, a project that grew out of Rose Busingye's experience, and Priscilla was one of the children who benefitted from AVSI’s long-distance support program that was set up in 2008, who has a difficult and very vulnerable personal story.

I have always been very close to her because, orphaned by both parents at the age of 16, she has always taken care of her siblings with great dedication, while continuing to study and graduating as the top student in school. She was an extremely strong-willed and resilient girl, and while she attended college she began to work at the Teacher Training Institute in Kampala, where I also worked. I still remember when, after a couple of years, I invited her to apply for a position as an English teacher at our primary school; she has now become the school’s principal.

So I also found myself on my way to Caserta. It was my first time attending a G7 event and I did not know what to expect. As I am in charge of education in AVSI, I wanted to be able to break away from the usual narrative that sees education as an element of economic empowerment. It is not that I am not aware that education is the primary tool for a country's economic development, but too often education is talked about as a tool for getting a job and for economic success, particularly in African schools and among technocrats on the Continent. This view leads to reductions and distortions at a pedagogical level, which deeply marks the lives of children. But what happened in Caserta took me completely by surprise.

When Priscilla began to speak, the room came to a standstill. She began by recounting what it meant for her to have lost her parents and how she felt looked at by her teachers, “In this situation, the teachers at Luigi Giussani School were always present to help me whenever I was in need. They accompanied me to discover that even in front of challenges, life is still worth living. I never felt alone at any point because I was surrounded with faces of people who truly loved me and desired to see me happy.”

She went on to explain why she took the elementary school job, “I wanted to continue living the same experiences that I lived as a student in Luigi Schools. Growing up in the slums, I knew that I would easily relate with the lives of the students I faced. These are children who come from humble but vulnerable families whose hope is in school. I desired to teach these children the same way I was taught; to help them discover their value, that they are important irrespective of the pain, suffering, poverty or hustles that they go through. I was accompanied in this path, so I desired to accompany them too.”

In simple but extremely timely words, she reminded everyone that education is not only about imparting skills and memorizing concepts, but also about helping each child to discover the infinite value they have and, consequently, to consider all aspects of reality as a value. One educates by attraction. Even when teaching reading and writing, or any other subject, there must be an attraction that helps students learn the content of what you are trying to convey. There is no dichotomy between reading-writing skills and social-emotional learning.

Priscilla told the story of Roby (a fictitious name), a young sixth-grade student who had a very complicated family situation and was often missing a lot of school. Worried, Priscilla spent two consecutive terms visiting him at his home almost every week, trying to convince him to go back to school. Then something changed. Unexpectedly, in the third term, the boy decided to go back to school of his own free will. When Priscilla asked him why, the boy's response was disarming: “Teacher, I realized that not even my own parents care about my stay in school, but you are different. You sacrificed your time to come and invite me back. This time I decided to come back because I want to concentrate on my studies, I want to take care of myself.”

Priscilla noted that not even having his tuition fully paid was enough to convince him; he was looking for something more, he needed to be loved and to find meaning in his life. She added, “My heart is just like this boy’s heart, and being an educator for me just means to journey together with him, towards the discovery of the meaning of our lives.”

Silvestri, who spoke immediately after Priscilla, underlined this point: “Luigi Giussani maintains that the person develops within a personal relationship. He emphasizes that a person's identity is only fully defined when it is recognized by someone else. The need for each of us to be recognized, to be seen as people with our own face, comes from here.” He then echoed Pope Francis' concerns regarding the Global Compact on Education: the importance of acting together, as one educating community, to rebuild “social networks that allow children to feel part of this community” and to create safe spaces where they can play, study, and develop positive relationships with adults who are an authoritative point of reference.

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After Priscilla's speech, which had been quoted several times, the statements of the G7 representatives, which are usually extremely succinct and to the point, took on more humane nuances. For a moment at least, it became clear to everyone that the problem of education is not reducible to learning to read-write, but rather has to do with the possibility that anyone – in the remote countryside of African villages or under the bombs in a refugee camp – can encounter a gaze like the one Priscilla described. For me, who often wonders how to influence the conception of education in a world of international cooperation, it was yet another testimony of how Fr. Giussani's charism can speak to the heart of every person, even to the great G7.

* Global Manager Education Unit - AVSI Foundation